Calling a Spade a Spade: American Fascism
It's time to call a spade a spade. Our government is broken, and nobody cares. We're moving further away from the strong Republic we once were, towards a future of warfare and fear. Our shared pain and loss from 9/11 are being exploited for private gain in the worst turn of American political depredation in memory.
The Presidential Administration has run the gamut, and succeeded. Congress is mute, the Supreme Court irrelevant, and the press adrift. Most Americans are even confused about who "the enemy" is.
Worst of all, this is all going according to plan. A group called Project for a New American Century has taken control of the country in a quest for American World Empire, and for the moment, we're just along for the ride.
Sound crazy? Nah, this story writes itself.
First off, politics is a complex subject. West Wing it is not. Humans have struggled with it for millenia, and it's not getting any easier. We have hopes and dreams, but too often they are dashed. They're dashed daily in the Capitol. At least, one can think of politics as a competition for power. Consider this insightful definition by Ambrose Bierce:
politics, n.: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
This characterization of politics isn't limited to satire, as in Bierce's case. Noam Chomsky has made a long career of researching accurate models of political function, and basically comes to the same conclusion in his definition of politics:
Perhaps this is too cynical, but our history is full of examples of governments misleading their own people, so why not here and now?
Keep that in mind when you now consider what it is that the people of America have come to see this war represent. As I said above, many American's don't even know who our enemies are. From an article at Salon.com:
'At the end of the first week of January, the Princeton Survey Research Associates polled more than 1,200 Americans on behalf of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. They asked a very simple question: "To the best of your knowledge, how many of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens?"
Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.
the suspected [actual] national identities of the hijackers -- 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese, and two from the United Arab Emirates'
And then consider the private interests. A group called PNAC is running the show. Here's their Statement of Principles. The signatories make up the backbone of Bush's cabniet. This is how they see the world:
"As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power.... Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?"
We now know their answer is yes, so the next question is, what is their specific interest in Iraq? It's surely not weapons, as we can barely find them in Iraq, while we've got a neighbor to the west that is absolutely shoving their nuclear manufacture and distribution capability in our noses. Not to mention that we gave Saddam the best of what he's got.
No, the interest is their oil. Direct profits and market control. It's so obvious it's laughable. Iraq's oil supply is the second largest on earth, at $8,000,000,000,000. PNAC, specifically Dick Cheney (former CEO of Halliburton, the largest oil services company in the world) is about to get control of it. And they're well underway in planning how to split it up.
But roll back a couple of years, when this wasn't certain yet. Imagine that you're PNAC, planning American Empire through the desperate years of the Clinton Administration, and then.. score! You find this guy. From The Progressive, "Bush's Messiah Complex", Bob Woodward speeking:
This is way too much power to give to anyone, and George W. Bush has the arrogance that comes with such power. "I do not need to explain why I say things," he told Woodward. "That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
The perfect fit! Arrogance must have been qualification #1 for the PNAC position. So arrogant that his response to the largest pre-war domestic peace protests in American history was "I respectfully disagree", before comparing them to an advertising focus group.
Indeed, Bush continued this contempt for public sanction in his "48-hour" speech:
"This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will."
This is where we get to fascism. In weilding power, it is the invocation of will, over legitimacy, that is the first sign of malignancy.
"If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower."
-- Adolf Hitler, Landsberg, 5 November 1925 (<-- 1925 was before he killed everyone.)
Alan Bloom makes this point best, in his book The Closing of the American Mind, when he tells of the lineage from Nietzsche 's Will To Power, to Hitler's Struggle for Power, to America's final import of these same ideas during the last century's nihilist cultural revolution.
The real threat to America today is that our post-9/11 xenophobia is being abused, just like Weimar Germany's ingrained xenophobia was. Though the initial movtives are different -- Hitler's was national identity, PNAC's is national opulence -- the end result is one of the oldest stories in history: power corrupts, and in the quest for Pax Americana, our leaders are tempting total corruption.
So, the Ambroce Pierce definition is right on, it's politics. But not politics as usual for the US. The form of politics which makes us great, Republic, is no longer how our government is functioning. There are checks to power in the Constitution, but they lay dormant. The Congress should have vigorously debated and then if need be declared this war, but instead they are "silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent", says Robert Byrd, the longest-serving senator.
Without the restraints of the Constitution, we're left with a single, arrogant, most powerful ruler. I hate to say it, but there's a word for this.
fascism, n.: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.